


sweet baby, i need fresh blood

by blackkat



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [78]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Shukaku in Gaara's body, Time Travel, but not really, first, so kind of a bodyswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 23:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14147073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Shukaku fixes the timeline. Grumpily. And with a lot of bloodshed.





	sweet baby, i need fresh blood

The hand that grabs the back of Minato's coat is an unpleasant surprise.

He’s on a battlefield, in the middle of a war; there’s no space to wonder how someone managed to sneak up on him, or why they didn’t just drive a kunai through his spine. Minato wrenches around, already reaching for the closest Hiraishin kunai even as he flips up the one he’s holding, slashes out—

A wave of sand stops the blade in midair.

Biting back a curse, Minato leaps away, summoning his chakra in a swirling ball. Suna is supposed to be occupied on the western front, kept there by the combined power of Kushina and Orochimaru. If they’ve managed to push this far, get past Konoha’s defenses, Konoha’s nearly certain victory is going to turn into a desperate fight for survival.

But even as he recoils, the sand falls away, and a slender man with sand-colored hair and deep brown skin marked with swirls of blue gives him a scathing look.

“You don’t have _time_ to be a moron right now!” he snaps, advancing a step, but when Minato retreats he stops short, aggravation visibly increasing. “I'm not your enemy, you idiot, I'm here to warn you! In about ten minutes that team of yours is going to get caught in an ambush.”

Minato's heartbeat stutters. “What?” he demands, and it feels a little like getting punched in the chest. No one knows about the Kannabi Bridge mission; he and Sarutobi kept it between them, just for this reason. There haven’t even been any papers filed. He and the Hokage are the only ones aware it’s happening.

The stranger huffs impatiently, folding his arms over his chest. “Iwa nin,” he says. “They’ve already grabbed the girl, and the other two are going to start losing their eyes any minute. You need to _go_.”

Eyes. Minato swallows hard, even as his mind races ahead. Obito doesn’t have his Sharingan yet, but—that’s easy enough to change, with his friends held captive, and he’ll be incredibly valuable to Iwa once he _does_ awaken them. Rin is strong, trained as an infiltrations expert and a spy, but she can't hold out against torture forever. Obito and Kakashi will definitely try to rescue her, and Minato can't see any way for that to end well.

Not unless they have help.

“How do you know?” he asks, keeps it level even though he’s torn between the urge to grab the man and shake him for more information and instinctive wariness of a stranger on a battlefield.

The man hisses, bristling, and snaps, “Because my grandmother is the one behind it, and I fucking _hate her_! Are you going to go or not?”

Family dynamics. Family unrest to the point a grandson would betray his grandmother, probably the head of the clan, and give her plans away to the enemy. Minato's thoughts are racing forward, playing out all the possible outcomes, and—it’s good. A Suna nin allying with Konoha, even briefly and out of spite, speaks well to Konoha’s effort in the war. And besides, Minato might not be part of a clan himself, but he knows Fugaku; family drama is something he’s encountered before.

He doesn’t hesitate a moment longer, taking a step forward even as he turns to find the other commander on the field. “Tsume, take over!” he calls, waits just long enough to see her wave a hand in acknowledgement, and then lunges, wrapping an arm around the Suna nin’s waist even as he reaches for the seal on the kunai Kakashi is carrying. There's a squawk of offense, a wave of sand, but in an instant they’re gone, emerging in—

Rocks falling, a cave coming down, a horrified cry that can't be anything but Kakashi’s, and Minato has fought enough Iwa nin to know a Doton on sight. He leaps forward—

The stranger slams him to the floor as the rocks settle, and Rin's horror echoes Kakashi’s. _Alive_ , Minato thinks, scrambling to his feet and dragging the stranger along with him mostly by accident. Rin is alive, and conscious, but he hasn’t heard Obito yet.

“Easy,” the stranger says, a little gruff, and drags Minato to the side, around a fall of boulders. Minato catches sight of Rin first, on her knees and ghostly pale, then Kakashi, blood running down his cheek, one eye slashed and the other wide in horror. And…

“ _Obito_ ,” he chokes out, and a hazy black eye flutters open. Aware, Minato realizes with his own surge of horror. _Gods_. He shouldn’t be. _Shouldn’t_ , not when half his body is crushed, and Minato is too late, too slow, shouldn’t have wasted time on questions when his team was in danger—

A hand slaps him hard in the middle of the back, startling in its suddenness, and the Suna nin pushes past him, shoving up the sleeves of his red robe. “He’s still alive,” the man says briskly, raising his hands, and he doesn’t even bother with hand seals but the boulders around them shatter into sand, whirling up and out and hardening into a dome around them. Obito cries out, ragged and hurt, and Rin and Kakashi whirl to look at them.

Minato tries not to let his guilt fester at the twin looks of relief. He was too late, and there's no changing that.

The stranger doesn’t seem aware of that, though. He crouches down next to Rin, looking Obito over, and then huffs out an irritated sound. Golden eyes fix on her, and he demands, “You, girl, can you fix him?”

Rin stares at him with wide eyes for a moment, flicks a glance at Minato, who can't do anything but nod. She swallows, and the line of her mouth firms, her shoulders squaring. “I can try,” she says, and her hands flicker green as she presses them gingerly to Obito's uncrushed side.

The man reaches out, curling a hand around her shoulder, and deep red chakra edged with black bleeds into the air. “Don’t worry about how much power you need,” he says, and it’s very nearly grumpy, but his other hand is careful where it closes around Obito's wrist. “I’ve got plenty to spare.”

Because Minato is watching, he can see the flicker of dark lines beneath the stranger’s fingers, and in a heartbeat he’s across the space, pulling them away just in time to see the fading edges of a seal sinking into Obito's skin.

“What was that?” he asks, ignoring Kakashi’s sudden tension, the uncertain flutter of Rin's chakra.

The stranger, however, doesn’t even seem to notice the killing intent that’s slipping past Minato's hold. He gives Minato an utterly unimpressed look and scoffs. “Making sure my grandmother won't be able to use him ever again,” he says, as if it should be obvious. “I'm not your enemy, you idiot. All I want is to get my father back and make sure my siblings are free. Your little war doesn’t matter worth a damn to me.”

_Lots_ of family drama, Minato thinks, maybe a little wry. But—the complete dismissal of the Third World War is more reassuring than it probably should be. He’s still going to copy the seal down for Kushina to check, but for now he’s more than willing to let it go. He releases the stranger’s arm, and asks, “Who are you?”

“Shukaku,” the man says, and he looks Minato over for a moment, then apparently decides he’s not going to try anything else.

“Just Shukaku?” Minato asks, keeps it light. Most Suna nin don’t carry family names, but some do. Now that he has the space to notice, Shukaku also looks rather like one of the strongest Suna jounin. If Minato's going to have to deal with that asshole Rasa’s family, he wants advance warning.

Shukaku hesitates, mouth tightening. Looks down at Obito for a long moment, but not as if he’s really seeing him.

“Ōtsutsuki,” he says finally. “Ōtsutsuki Shukaku.”

It’s not a name Minato knows, but he nods, accepting it like a peace offering. “Rin,” he says quietly, pushing to his feet and stepping over to brace Kakashi as he wavers. “Let me know as soon as Obito is stable enough to move. I’ll take us right to the hospital.”

Rin nods determinedly, though her gaze doesn’t waver from her work.

Shukaku glances at her, then at Minato, and rolls his eyes. He brings one hand up, and with a puff of smoke a clone appears, taking his place with Rin as he rises.

“A bunch of morons are trying to surround us,” he says in response to Minato's look, and grins. It’s…bloodthirsty. “It’s past time I killed some things.”

Iwa, Minato thinks, and his hands curl into fists as he remembers the Doton jutsu. “Would you mind some company?” he asks, and it’s a little more cheerful than is probably socially appropriate but Minato can't be bothered to care.

Something like surprise flickers over Shukaku’s face, like he was expecting Minato to stop him. Then, a heartbeat later, his grin widens sharply, showing pointed teeth. “Not at all,” he growls, and flicks his fingers. The dome of sand parts just enough to let him through, and Minato follows, making a conscious decision not to reach for his Hiraishin kunai.

He doesn’t want to end this too quickly, after all.

Shukaku is clearly of the same mind, going by the screams. He's a little too pretty covered in blood, too, and Minato has to try very hard to hang on to his suspicion in the face of it. 


End file.
